Northern San Juan

Snowpack

joe eppler · Jan 31, 2013 · Northern San Juan

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Weather

warm and sunny, calm westerly winds 18-30" in last 72 hrs

Snowpack

first bluebird day after receiving 18-28' in the north san juans. Instability tests showed a very weak snow pack on north aspects, ranging in depth from 1 meter to 1.5 meters at TL, we experienced cracking and settling on ascent on these colder aspects. On the westerly aspects, which we decided to ski, we found a well bonded storm snow atop a stout 10-15cm knife mfc with a 15-20 cm of dh-dh chains below. there was a weak interface within the storm snow about 20 cm down at density change (F- 4f), by our last lap the southerly aspects had developed a thin sun crust and our party released a skier triggered slide on a BTL west face ( 2'*500*800 ASc-SS-R1-D1.5-O/G)